Proposals for changes to doctors and medicine.

[goboking]

The state of diseases in the current iteration of ONI has been discussed at length, so I'll skip the pitch for more severe diseases and instead offer a few other proposals that might make doctors and medicine more useful or interesting.

 

Medical Research

Doctors could have their own medical research stations where they research diseases and/or cures.  At its simplest, doctors could research individual medicines like immuno boosters or curative tablets at their own dedicated research station (or at the Apothecary).  A more complex iteration could have doctors studying germs (or sick patients) before unlocking the ability to produce cures.

 

New Diseases

There's room for new diseases in the game.  There could be germs that blight plants, cause critters to become aggressive, or damage buildings made of specific materials.  There could be germs whose vectors are randomly pulled from one pool, symptoms from another, and cures from a third.  The vectors, symptoms, and cures for such germs could remain unknown until the either an infected dupe or the germ itself is studied by a doctor.

 

New Buildings and Medicines

First, I feel the duration of a vitamin chew needs to be increased to make it worth consideration.  As is, they require a non-trivial amount of time and power to make and they only offer a one-cycle .5 boost to immunity.  That's pretty steep costs for so small a benefit, and when weighed against the rather mild nature of the diseases currently in the game, it's hard to convince myself vitamin chews are worthwhile at any point in the game.

As for new buildings, an X-Ray machine requiring radbolts could be used to give dupes a periodic checkup that, when complete, gives them a Clean Bill of Health buff that could either boost their morale or their productivity.  While we're on the subject of medical buildings, please - for the love of Meep! - change the Triage Cot's health sliders to work like the Massage Table's stress sliders.

For new medicines, a stimulant that boosts Strength and Athletics for a cycle or two would certainly be something I'd want to keep in stock, especially in the early game where a +1 to those stats is most significant.  There's the old placebo that could be recycled in some capacity (even if its just the art asset getting repurposed for something else).  And it would be a huge QOL improvement if rad pills were only taken when a dupe's rads are above a certain threshold.

 

That's all I've got.  Feel free to weigh in if you've got any ideas of your own.

[Sasza22]

3 hours ago, goboking said:

Feel free to weigh in if you've got any ideas of your own

Let me give my thoughts again (i made like 3 threads about medicine and disease already i think : )

3 hours ago, goboking said:

Medical Research

Not a fan of this one honestly. It makes the system pretty complex. Main reason germs were nerfed was how hard they were to deal for the new players. Making it an entire research tree might be too much imo. Instead i`d push it into the late game. A germ analysis station could be used lategame to produce vaccines. A vaccine would be pretty expensive to craft but would make a dupe immune to the disease for something like 30 cycles.

3 hours ago, goboking said:

New Diseases

More germ and non germ diseases could be easily added. Especially when some stations just cure a single thing. I imagine a critter or morph could be poisonous (like a poisonous pokeshell morph that produces more lime) and require an antivenom as a cure. Or a critter that produces germs on it`s own and transfers them to dupes when groomed. Also a cold based germ causing symptoms similar to narcoleptia.

The idea for randomized diseases sounds interesting. Could be hard to balance though especially in SO where resources tend to be limited and you might end with a powerful disease and no way to cure it.

3 hours ago, goboking said:

New Buildings and Medicines

I`d ditch the vitamin chews altogether. Instead i`d add cures for the minor diseases while buffing the a tiny bit. Peppernut pills for hypothermia but it no longer ends unless dupe gets warm (pills provide a bonus for homeostasis), ice packs for heat stroke, painkillers for wounds (doesn`t heal just removes the debuff), something for sunburn and stinging eyes etc.

I`d love an X-ray powered by radbolts. I`m not yet sure how it should work, maybe just a few boosts would be enough.

Rather than stimulants i`d go further and introduce grafts like in Invisible Inc or Griftlands. Making a graft slot would cause the dupe to require higher morale but the bonuses would be really strong and unique.

[pether]

You may be interested in my mod, "Diseases Expanded". Currently it adds new germs and diseases to the game, but I'm working to inroduce medical research and new buildings as well

[Sanchozz]

In order for doctors and medicine to be really in demand in the game, it should be much more similar to Rimworld. But, right before the release of the base game in 2019, it went directly in the opposite direction, to the simplification.

[goboking]

3 hours ago, Sanchozz said:

In order for doctors and medicine to be really in demand in the game, it should be much more similar to Rimworld. But, right before the release of the base game in 2019, it went directly in the opposite direction, to the simplification.

Surely you’re not suggesting we harvest Stinky’s organs?!  

[Ellilea]

Anything really to make diseases interactable and noticeable

I've started a colony with the DLC after a loooong break and I haven't even bothered making airlocks or building exosuits for going into a slime biome. I think someone got a slimelung case every now and then, but I can't say I noticed xD I have no hospital, haven't made a single medicine pill, don't care about balm lilies at all. Heck, from what I'm seeing I don't even need to care about radiation, tbh. They'll just slow down a little and go poo to make it go away soon enough (guess it'd be different building up in space without any protection, but before that it seems as inconsequential as every other disease).

I'm also digging through a -200something ice biomes (Baator asteroid) without the suits, because let's be honest, hypothermia isn't a thing that matters. Only scalding stops my naked dupes going wherever the heck they please.

I still do miss the early betas where slimelung was something to watch out for and play around smartly. Honestly, if there was a nice, balanced disease mode in options that brings back the old ways that'd be sufficient. Doesn't have to affect new players.

 

Sorry I went a little off-topic here, but I'm a bit salty ;p

[pether]

On 3/1/2022 at 4:24 PM, pether said:

You may be interested in my mod, "Diseases Expanded". Currently it adds new germs and diseases to the game, but I'm working to inroduce medical research and new buildings as well

Update - I released things I told you about, feel free to check it out if you want to spice up your diseases

9 hours ago, Ellilea said:

Heck, from what I'm seeing I don't even need to care about radiation, tbh.

IMO Radiation is done really good and its sickness is perfectly balanced. It has stages, so you are warned and can react before your duplicants will die. At first it does little, but 2nd stage becomes annoying enough to care about it - I experienced it a lot in my games, I hated it enough to avoid it in the future, but it wasn't tedious to the level I hated the game for it. You can't really stay fully safe from it like by uprooting sporechids and forgetting about them for the rest of the game - you want to have more and more radiation to gather radbolts and mutate plants faster, it's a nice balance of risk and reward and I really like how Klei did that part. Good job, we need more diseases like that!

Ofc if current radiation is too easy you can always modify game settings to hit you faster - that makes more sense than germ resistance, because even if you make hardest setting with those, slimelung still does nothing even if you catch it twice a cycle.

100% agreed on the rest of your feedback though

[Sasza22]

16 hours ago, Ellilea said:

I've started a colony with the DLC after a loooong break and I haven't even bothered making airlocks or building exosuits for going into a slime biome. I think someone got a slimelung case every now and then, but I can't say I noticed xD I have no hospital, haven't made a single medicine pill, don't care about balm lilies at all.

I tried the perfect storm scenario for slimelung recently. The swamp planetoid in the cluster generation has surrounding slime biomes and no balm lillies present. When relying on ofgassing pdirt a single chunk of slime can infect the entire base quickly. That happened to me but despite having germs everywhere i never had more than 4-5 dupes out of 12 sick at a time. I have to say it slowed work in my base but it never was an actual problem. After i got several deodorizers the slimelung was gone despite not all polluted oxygen was cleared.

As for radiation there is always this threat that it can get worse. I didn`t try the perfect storm for that (the radiated cluster start) but still i was getting dupes sick pretty often due to space radiation (usually inside rockets). It is much harder to avoid than germs atm and feels dangerous with multiple stages - something slimelung could use. Radiation on the other hand could use a less tedious way to prevent it (making pills takes forever).

[Ellilea]

I see, maybe I saw it wrong on the Let's Play (in my base the radiation is a non factor for now). It seemed there that dupes exposed to radiation only get slower at things and don't actually end up dying. If they do, my bad and I rescind my uninformed feedback!

Though I think it'd be cooler if at say mild level of radiation a dupe had to enter some recalibration-purification chamber to get fixed instead of just popping a pill (that should be an option for the lower level). Diversify strategies and require a bit more difficult healing process for failing to protect the dupes - shouldn't be much of a hassle either. Just be more varied.

[Sasza22]

4 hours ago, Ellilea said:

Though I think it'd be cooler if at say mild level of radiation a dupe had to enter some recalibration-purification chamber to get fixed instead of just popping a pill

Well the pill just gives them an effect that lowers their absorbed rads so if they get a lot a single pill won`t help instantly. Especially when you order them to work in space where you can get ~300 rads/cycle on some planetoids. You still need to keep the dupe from further exposure.

It would be cool to have a station for serious rad amounts.

[bethypso]

I totally agree with the fact that disease/medecine is useless in the game. That's too sad cause there is some potential.

I always plays in max difficulty and never bother about any disease or any medecine building or pill related cause there is no consequences. (exception of radiation with seems have good balance). Very strange compared to heat or asphyxia which are able to kill or harm dupes very quickly.

I think instead of making new stuff, making the one existing really matter would be nice.

A simple way of doing that is by difficulty setting. Simply adjust numbers. Make dupes loose health, loose athletics, loose anything but MORE!

And yes, make vitamins last longer... (adjusted on medicine skill may be?)

[goboking]

7 hours ago, bethypso said:

I always plays in max difficulty and never bother about any disease or any medecine building or pill related cause there is no consequences.

I too play on the hardest difficulty settings (except for food, I refuse to make my dupes eat mush bars!).  I do make vitamin chews and immuno boosters, but I know full well I'm just going through the motions when doing so.

[Eliaslorenz]

The medical system as a whole needs a rework, I do agree. I happen to have an idea for something that could be added:
Medical resurrection. Now, hear me out; this wouldn't be as simple as just bringing dupes back to life after death, it'd be similar to the incapacitated mechanic where there's a time limit.

The kicker is that duplicant medical skill and the progression of said limit would determine both if the dupe is even able to be brought back to life and how bad/how long the negative effects would last.

Negative effects could range anywhere from forgetting skills entirely with no refund to skill points, downgrading stats like althetics and science for a long time, and cause stress for other duplicants similar to the ''mourning'' debuff but only half as bad, since they're partly relieved by the dupe's survival.

I think something like this would work in tandem with stronger, deadlier diseases fairly well if balanced properly, and perhaps each death reduces the chance of medical success drastically so that its VERY unlikely a duplicant can survive death more than once. It's always struck me as odd how these little buggers can carry like 20 times their weight, run around faster than transit tubes, build rockets and traverse space, etc, but can't do surgery or even make a defibrillator. Not to mention it'd make stronger diseases a little bit less of a new player killer, as new players would have a chance to cycle back on their mistake at least once without reloading saves. Certain deaths are not recoverable, like burns (which could have severities) and a select very few diseases.