Resource Variance and how it could work in relation to set pieces

[DwerBomb]

So right now resources become sick and the disease slowly kills them, making them despawn to then spawn the alternative resource in the world.

I love this system! It makes sedimentary life harder and forces the players to explore. The only problem is something like this:

Some set pieces were specifically designed to work in the vanilla way, so without the diseases and all. Now I'm not sure if the example above is just a bug, if so ignore this thread. But if it isn't I have 2-3 possible suggestions on how to fix it:

-give set pieces an immunity tag for the diseases. The resources will stay there for all the time unless you move them, forcing the players to have to go back to the set piece.

-make the plants not disappear if they are a part of the set piece, so they'll stay diseased but not despawn

And talking about diseases, so sick plants have any disadvantages? Like longer time needed to regrow or possibility to drop rot instead of the resource?

because my third suggestion would be a more drastical rework of how variance works:

-all resources (not just set pieces) could exist both as their alternative and their original form, but they alternate in sickness. Diseased resources have these properties:

•double regrow th time (grass tufts will require 6 days instead of 3 to grow back)

•need to be fertilised more frequently, after half the harvests (grass tufts normally need to be fertilised after 20 harvests, and sick after 10)

•chance to drop rot instead of the resource or drop nothing at all 

•possibly a small sanity drain on pickup? (-1 sanity per harvest?)

 

Anyways, I'm loving the resource variance mechanic. Especially the Geckos. Those things are just too adorable!