Dupe Healthcare... and VH settings.

[WanderingKid]

So, I'd like to discuss Dupe Healthcare and some comments on it.  In particular, the morale and stress implications of it.

My current board is Miserable, Fatalistic, and VH Stress Reactions.  Okay, so I earned it, I should avoid getting dupes sick.  There's still limits as to where the expectations can lie.

You need great morale to counterbalance fatalistic stress levels.  This is common in the base as well.  After that, it's interactions and massages that can control the full stress.  The problem is trying to keep up that morale is nigh impossible with a bout of slimelung.

Overall, I'd like the sick bay morale to not require things like access to the Main Hall, JukeBot, and other possible morale dependencies that you would typically have available for a dupe to no longer be available when they're sick.  Right now, about the best you can do:

You can create a full shift break (+4 morale) and move patients into it.  That seems silly, especially when you're controlling a contagion, but it's possible.  It's mostly aggravating micro to put them back when they're done.

You could create a bed in a palace of décor, which will get you to +12.  You will spend a tremendous amount of time building each med bay, but it can be done.  Before glass and tons of gold plated metal, you're basically limited to the granite statue/portrait bomb.  Hope you don't need more than 2 or 3 if you'd like to do anything else.

Finally, you can bring food up to par.  Depending on where you are in your controls, you're most likely pre-exosuits, which is how you got to this point in the first place.  This means it's unlikely you've setup BBQ or a lot of pepper bread.  The best I would personally expect here would be Omelets for +4.

This barely gets you to 20+ morale, enough for early/mid game morale values for your tenured scientists or the like.  In the image above, 8 is really more likely.  You're likely to have +2 morale in 3 downtime slots, barely have decent food between meal lice and grilled berries, and you'll have some décor to help out but you probably haven't built a museum with a bed in the middle.

Now, again, this is NOT balanced for normal play.  However, I would like it if a few adjustments could be made to help for all level components.

• Change the morale expectations for a sick dupe:
  • Bed vs. pharma chamber for +x / +x*2
  • Care not received/received.  -x / +x
  • Time outside of med bay required (for not enough toilets, local food shortage, etc) -x (percentage of cycle?)
  • Quality of Air?
  • … I'm sure there's other ideas we could add to this.

So, I know it's at max difficulty (besides food, because screw that one, too much time to chew) but that doesn't mean the morale repairs we would use for a normal base should be completely absent for a sick dupe without some form of compensation.

[InternetGuy]

I'm wondering why there isn't a proper doctor job yet since diseases can become serious in the colony. This may also boost morale having someone stick to care for the duplicant instead of digging a hole somewhere.

I like this idea of yours because when my dupes gets sick, there's just this downward spiral in stress and morale. I'm not good enough at playing yet to stop this, sadly.