Medical redesign ideas and discussion

[Pproy]

So, like many players, I feel like the current diseases and medical system could use some work.

While Food Poisoning can serve as an good introduction for the diseases mechanic, Slime Lung is often little more than an annoyance that can be ignored. Even if there an outbreak of Slimelung in the colony, it can be eventually be dealt with by using air purifier, leaving no real consequences. On the other hand, Zombie Spore can be deal just by careful digging around Sporechids, so while the debuff to dupe is massive, it really never come into play. Worst even is the fact that atmosuit nullify the threat of both diseases.

However, as much I would like diseases to be an actual threat to colonies and see new diseases introduced into the game (suggestion of diseases welcome BTW), I don't think they should be buff (not yet anyway).

So why is that? Well here a quote from another discussion on these forum:

If we would buff diseases, currently, they would be tedious to remove.

So, before we modify diseases per say, I think we should look at the current medical system.

Sink, showers and sanitizer does a good job at killing germs on dupe, but on material, tiles, liquid and gas? Well for material, there the Ore Scrubber (which, quite frankly, no one uses). For liquid, there's chlorine room (which is fine, since it rewards creativity from players) or Sanishell (I don't think anyone breed them for that purpose). For gas and tile, usually temperature control or the previously mention air scrubber.

In Space Out!, we can use radiation to fight the spread of diseases. However, I think there should be a building that does the same thing without radiation. For example, the Ore Scrubber could be redesigned to kill germs in an area of effect by consuming chlorine (or bleach stone, ethanol or something in theme). That way, we players can place them in strategic place, for example close to the auto sweeper that handle raw meat, all in the purpose of preventing the spread of germ on materials.

On the same logic, maybe Shine Bug could get the same gimmick as Sanishell as an alternative to fight germs spread in gas. They do it a bit with radiation, but they could be buff in that regard. Different morphs could disinfect more rapidly, so if a dupe actually get infected with Zombie Spore, there would be some ground work already established to get the Sun Bugs eggs required to make the Serum to treat it.

Also, the germ sensor should be redesigned to detect germ in a room or in a radius around it (right now its just looking in the tile its sitting on, which limits its application).

I have other ideas, but the post is getting long. So feel free to share your thought, or critic my ideas (constructively please).

[SGT_Imalas]

for more disease concepts, look no further than Diseases Expanded

that mod adds a wide variety of unique diseases to the game and gives medicine a purpose with the mutating virus

[cyberwarlord]

Posted September

Wish medical was rebalance/refreshed. Less resources for a single use item for one. crafting x5-10 at once. More seed and plant uses. Add disease stages I,II,III. Higher difficulty allows later stages. Add more negative trait based effects. (Example:zombie spores causes dupes to idle like zombies randomly and at higher stages shrieking aura causing panick.)

Broken bones. Burns. Frostbite. Blindness. Deafening.  Bites. Vertigo. Poisoned(plant?) 

Effects that only heal when treated. 

Breathing machine that uses bottled oxygen for hospital room. 

Future medicine that can alter traits?

[Sasza22]

As you mentioned adding more diseases will make the gmae more tedious since we lack good ways to get rid of them. We could use some low tier disinfecting machines like something that purifies the air out of germs using chlorine canisters (later replaced with some radlamp variant). Even better if chlorine would disinfect nearby tiles so we could just pump chlorine into a room and then pump it out (like in a disinfecting chamber).

Also the minor diseases could use some treatment options, like trating hypothermia with a spicy pepperplant pill or with a bath in the bathtub. The disease could also get a second stage where the dupe gets frozen solid if his temperature goes below zero. Imo all disaesaes could use the radiation sickness logic, if not treated and still exposed to the source it should get worse.

[O.J.Vodka]

The disease should enhance in several aspects

1. Viruses can mutate, and people are more afraid of the unknown of viruses. For example, COVID-19 and ancient viruses buried underground need medical researchers to constantly detect and research, develop and produce vaccines and drugs, while the past drugs are ineffective, and similar games like "Plague Inc"

2. The sequelae of the disease, such as drug addiction ("Frostpunk", "Fallout 4"), such as a significant decrease in immune function after the disease, and relying on machines for maintenance for the rest of the life.

3. With an extremely long incubation period, the virus will not immediately develop after infection. These viruses are carried by people and then spread to others. Once someone is found to be sick, it is not one or two anymore

4. disinfection and sterilization of imported clothes. Viruses can live on clothes for a long time. disinfection and sterilization should be carried out every time they come in and out.

5. Separate bedrooms and restrooms to prevent cross infection. If you get sick, you should stay in the room, and food will be delivered daily.
疾病应该会几个方面寻找灵感
1.病毒可以变异，人们对病毒的未知更可怕，例如新冠病毒、地底埋藏的远古病毒，需要医学科研人员不间断的检测与研究，研发和生产疫苗和药物，而过去的药物无效，类似的游戏“Plague Inc”
2.疾病的后遗症，比如对药物成瘾（“Frostpunk”、“Fallout 4 ”），比如病后免疫能力大幅下降，余生都要依靠机器维持。
3.超长的潜伏期，感染病毒后不会立即发病，这些病毒被人携带继而传播给别人，一旦发现有人患病，就不是一两个了
4.入口衣物的消杀，病毒可以在衣物上存活很长时间，每次进出都应该进行消杀。

5.单独的卧室和洗手间，防止交叉感染，一旦得病应该待在房间里，每日会机器人送食物。新冠期间从外地回来的人要被关在酒店里隔离7天。

 

[Pproy]

15 hours ago, cyberwarlord said:

Add disease stages I,II,III. Higher difficulty allows later stages

 

15 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

Imo all disaesaes could use the radiation sickness logic, if not treated and still exposed to the source it should get worse.

I like those ideas! It would give ample of time to players to react when their dupe get sick, and only punish those who dont.

 

8 hours ago, O.J.Vodka said:

4. disinfection and sterilization of imported clothes. Viruses can live on clothes for a long time. disinfection and sterilization should be carried out every time they come in and out.

This. I feel like Atmosuit can completely mitigate the danger of diseases, while in reality, the suit would get contaminated and could infect its surroundings if not decontaminated. Like @Sasza22 said, we could place Atmosuit dock in a decontamination chamber where a germ sensor (after it gets buff) would toggle a decontamination mechanism, like flooding the room with chlorine, rad lamp, etc...

It would be nice for Sweepy to have a role in disease control... He could have a squirt bottle or something, and look annoyed when a dupe full of germ pass by

[goboking]

2 hours ago, Pproy said:

It would be nice for Sweepy to have a role in disease control... He could have a squirt bottle or something, and look annoyed when a dupe full of germ pass by

Sweepy's job is cleaning up the colony.  Let him be WALL-E and give us a new, sleeker EVE model for medical and scientific functionality.

[cyberwarlord]

6 hours ago, goboking said:

Sweepy's job is cleaning up the colony.  Let him be WALL-E and give us a new, sleeker EVE model for medical and scientific functionality.

Little buddy needs to be a farm bot.

[Charletrom]

Maybe it would be enough to update the difficulty setting so it changes disease severity rather than germ resistance.

Highest difficulty = higher sickness debuff, a stress penalty, etc.

[Pproy]

On 9/26/2023 at 12:51 AM, Charletrom said:

Maybe it would be enough to update the difficulty setting so it changes disease severity rather than germ resistance.

Highest difficulty = higher sickness debuff, a stress penalty, etc.

One thing I feel could help would be if there was a risk VS reward aspect to disease. For example, for all the risk the zombie spore poses, Sporechid only gives the player 80 decor...

On that note, I would like to suggest a new source of zombie spore: a new fungus that grow plastic! The new plant would require temperature of at least 60°C (or more, essentially a hot atmosphere), an atmosphere of CO2 and something relatively simple for fertilizer (polluted dirt of wood?). Basically, it shouldn't be hard getting the resources to fertilize the plant, but it come to the cost that it release a lot of zombie spore. So the challenge of getting plastic this way would be making sure that there disinfection solution for anything going out of the farm at the risk of causing an outbreak.

[Charletrom]

45 minutes ago, Pproy said:

One thing I feel could help would be if there was a risk VS reward aspect to disease. For example, for all the risk the zombie spore poses, Sporechid only gives the player 80 decor...

On that note, I would like to suggest a new source of zombie spore: a new fungus that grow plastic! The new plant would require temperature of at least 60°C (or more, essentially a hot atmosphere), an atmosphere of CO2 and something relatively simple for fertilizer (polluted dirt of wood?). Basically, it shouldn't be hard getting the resources to fertilize the plant, but it come to the cost that it release a lot of zombie spore. So the challenge of getting plastic this way would be making sure that there disinfection solution for anything going out of the farm at the risk of causing an outbreak.

I love this! But we would need to do something about atmosuits. Currently they are too strong with regard to disease prevention. Maybe zombie spores could stick to the suits and expose the next dupe that equips them?