More Germs, Gases and Diseases!

[Firecart]

I found the already existing germs to be a bit lackluster. Some of them can be destroyed, waited out, or even just avoided, and even contracting the disease is not very deadly to Duplicant health as most just decrease Duplicant attributes for a time. But what if that wasn't the case with some other germs? Maybe I'll even throw in some toxic gases just to make it a challenge...

Poisoned disease - When Duplicants contract this disease, they will have a high chance of dying when the duration is over when not cured in time, as well as having attribute debuffs. 5 Cycles duration for minor, 3 Cycles for moderate, and 1 Cycle for severe poisoning. This disease has some symptoms depending on the poison source, with Carbon Monoixide having almost no symptoms.

Poisoning, unlike other diseases, are not visible by default. Visibility can be toggled in sandbox settings, so it can be seen like other diseases without the use of a medical scanner.

Toxic category - Items with this category will be toxic to Duplicants when consumed or inhaled, and generally will be better to have automation handle these items instead of Duplicants.

Toxic Waste germs - Can be contracted by breathing without an oxygen mask or atmo suit, and can also minorly poison the duplicant. Found in some Gravitas ruins and can be purified with a deodorizer or carbon skimmer, and can also be produced by some machines. Lives in most gases, liquids and solids. This germ decays after 5 days (or 5 days after it is discovered in a ruin), and cannot reproduce to create more germs without finding more ruins or using some machines. A nasty surprise to some who aren't prepared to deal with this, or to those who are exploring some ruins.

Sulfur Dioxide gas - A highly toxic but breathable gas that will moderately poison Duplicants after 60 seconds of exposure and will eventually kill them if they stay in the gas for longer than a cycle, although this quick death can be avoided by wearing an oxygen mask or atmo suit. Will give duplicants a non-lethal debuff when breathed in, even when they haven't been exposed for the full 60 seconds, and this debuff lasts for about a cycle. This gas can be purified into Sulfur and Oxygen when cooled enough or through a machine, and can also be found in some biomes that generate with Sulfur or created using certain machines.

Carbon Monoxide gas - A highly toxic and unbreathable gas that functions much like Sulfur Oxide, except it severely poisons Duplicants with next to no symptoms of poisoning aside from lightheadedness, and it can also be breathed when mixed in with oxygen or other breathable gases. Produced by certain machines or found naturally, and can be cleared with a carbon skimmer. To be avoided at all costs, or else it could be the downfall of quite a few Duplicants if you're not careful...

Tritium - A toxic and highly radioactive byproduct/waste product of the Research Reactor. It can be obtained naturally through operation or through meltdowns, and needs Hazmat Mining to mine the material. Duplicants standing near this material without proper protection for 30 seconds will get severely poisoned.

Medical Scanner - A structure that scans duplicants for diseases when they pass by, as some poison can be very subtle, such as Carbon Monoxide poisoning.

Antipoison Pill/Syringe and Detoxifier - Antipoison pills will cure minor poisoning, Syringes will cure both minor and moderate, and the Detoxifier is an advanced mid-late game structure that will cure Duplicants of all poison, no matter how severe. The Detoxifier must be placed in a hospital to gain functionality, and the Antipoison pills can be crafted at an Apocethary and Disease Clinic, but the syringe variant must be crafted at the Disease Clinic.

Any duplicant can use pills or the detoxifier, but only doctors can use and administer syringes.

[axxel]

Some "love" for plant and critter diseases (epizootic, pests, mold, weed)? I'd like to see a better synergy of doctors and farmers. Monocropping and intensive animal husbandry are very unhealthy for plants and farm animals. It could be a way to punish make it more interesting.

[Henlikuoth]

The topic of germs and diseases being much too weak and practically negligible has been discussed a lot in the last two years.

Most players agree that the current germ/disease system needs a profound overhaul.

I hope Klei will finally do something about this...

I was hoping for germs and diseases to be much stronger and more threatening so that the players finally do something about it in-game: more careful exploration, strict protection mechanics against germs, a long-overdue appreciation of chlorine vents, and much more. 

[Firecart]

3 hours ago, Henlikuoth said:

The topic of germs and diseases being much too weak and practically negligible has been discussed a lot in the last two years.

Most players agree that the current germ/disease system needs a profound overhaul.

I hope Klei will finally do something about this...

I was hoping for germs and diseases to be much stronger and more threatening so that the players finally do something about it in-game: more careful exploration, strict protection mechanics against germs, a long-overdue appreciation of chlorine vents, and much more. 

When I posted this, that was exactly what I was thinking, although I didn't have too many ideas on what I could do aside from duplicants being poisoned from gas and some germs.

[Gurgel]

It has been a while, but I think I am ready for some actually severe or even deadly diseases to come back and maybe some poisoning on top of that.

Note that I would _not_ welcome dupes puking all over again, that was just too tedious. Well, maybe with a new "find and cleanup vomit" task so we do not have to do it manually. 

[Charletrom]

With the new DLC model I don’t think we are getting a big overhaul any time soon. At most we will get one new disease/health condition to align with DLC content (eg radiation sickness with SO).

 

I do think, however, that we might get some tweaks that address most of the complaints. I think that simply adding a stress debuff to diseases would be enough. Alternatively, the difficulty options could be changed to increase disease duration rather than germ resistance.

 

There are a few other tweaks that could help as well, like removing the ability of the grill to kill germs (ppl get sick from “cooked” food all the time)

 

[Firecart]

7 hours ago, Charletrom said:

With the new DLC model I don’t think we are getting a big overhaul any time soon. At most we will get one new disease/health condition to align with DLC content (eg radiation sickness with SO).

 

I do think, however, that we might get some tweaks that address most of the complaints. I think that simply adding a stress debuff to diseases would be enough. Alternatively, the difficulty options could be changed to increase disease duration rather than germ resistance.

 

There are a few other tweaks that could help as well, like removing the ability of the grill to kill germs (ppl get sick from “cooked” food all the time)

 

Simply adding a stress debuff for a disease can just be taken care of easily via massage clinics and generally good conditions, I was thinking about diseases more along the lines of deadly and actually dangerous, since pretty much all diseases just affect duplicant attributes (I'm not sure about radioactive contaminants though, but what are the chances that a duplicant will get exposed to large amounts of it without a lead suit or some form of protection, or just avoided?)

I might create another post related to this, though, considering that this one is actually more oriented to toxic items and gases rather than actual disease. Also, a stress disease probably isn't a bad idea if its got a lethal side effect as well, if it isn't cured.

[Charletrom]

On high difficulty an additional stress debuff even on a single dupe can be a big problem in the early game.

[Firecart]

I've played on the default (Spaced Out! by the way) settings, and I'm intending to do a high difficulty run soon after I finish up my one-dupe only run. I have no idea what high difficulty entails, but I'm sure its quite hard. 

[Sasza22]

More varied disaeases would be welcome. Germ based could be spread by critters and require advanced ranching to cure the critter. Maybe a cold loving germ could cause suits to break faster warranting routine disinfection of docks.

We don`t even need germs for toxic poisoning. We already have the stinging eyes debuff. Just make it more severe with longer exposure and add a cure to counteract it. Similar for other minor diseases, hypothemia, heat stroke, sunburn. add more severe versions after longer exposure (up to being incapacitated) and a set of medicine to fix the dupes once they get to that point.

[goboking]

On 4/4/2024 at 8:11 AM, Charletrom said:

 

With the new DLC model I don’t think we are getting a big overhaul any time soon. At most we will get one new disease/health condition to align with DLC content (eg radiation sickness with SO).

 

I would hope a disease overhaul would emphasize doctors and medicine, not stress management, as the treatment to physical maladies.