Why are infections so freaking lethal?

[hermanJnr]

Disclaimer: I've been playing 2 days and I really like the game.

I was 3 in-game months into my last game when I had some raiders turn up with absolutely rubbish weapons. Gunned them all down, with the only injury being a tiny graze to Sheena "Pumpkin" Lais' head from a missed pistol shot.

She moved immediately to my sterile-floored, clean hospital room into a nice cosy bed. The doc gets her patched up, zzzzz time.

5 minutes later: "Pumpkin has developed a minor infection (Head)".
Okay, no worries, she's already getting more medicine...
*half a day later*
"Pumpkin is now battling a severe infection."
*more meds*
*half a day*
"Pumpkin is now dying of an extreme infection."
*Half a day*
"Pumpkin, your only useful miner and scientist, is now rat food. LOL SUKS TO BE U M8 INNIT. HIT ENTER TO RESTART."

Even if Dwarf Fortress, where a miner stubbing his toe can result in him turning into a lump of septic pus, or the doctors may be so incompetent they think a head amputation will improve the patient's health...even in that game infection isn't so one-way lethal.

Or am I doing it wrong? Because I'm yet to see anyone recover over the space of 5 infections here

[Greep]

You basically have to micromanage it.  Have to have your doctor in the medical room, with medicine nearby, and manually wake your doctor up during sleep hours to treat it in time.

You know.  fun.  right? >.>

That being said, the best way to fight infections is to not get them.  Treat your injuries in time, and you won't have to join micro hell.

[Boston]

Welcome to real life. Diseases, especially sepsis, will kill you extremely quickly. Medicine helps, but it isn't guaranteed.

[Hans Lemurson]

Deadly infections, eh?  Just wait until you encounter Plague! ^_^

Yes, infections are very dangerous, but there are some things you can do to greatly reduce their lethality:

• Tend to wounds immediately.  Bruises can be ignored, but cuts stabs and burns are all infections waiting to happen.
  
• Enforce bed rest.  Resting in a bed increases your "immunity gain speed" by 10%.  This sounds small, but remember that immunity is a race and all that matters is that you get to 100 before the infection does.  Order your pawn to "rest until healed".  Make sure no other jobs are higher priority than bed rest.
  
• Treat infections with medicine as often as possible.  Usually keep it Herbal to minimize costs, but if their life is in danger, break out the good stuff.  With a skilled doctor you can get away with no-medicine treatments, but the better the treatment quality the more the disease progression is slowed.  When the treatment-circle goes hollow, then the disease progression is back up to full speed until you "apply a fresh bandage" (or whatever counts as medical care on the Rim).

[Shurp]

Better solution: mod medicine to be more effect.  Herbal to 0.5 effectiveness and regular medicine to 0.85 effectiveness makes diseases treatable without being absurdly lethal.

(In real life 50% of people infected with bubonic plague will survive with *NO* treatment whatsoever.  So don't give me this "real life" nonsense.  Rimworld disease is broken.  But easy enough to fix on your own)

[Boston]

Better solution: mod medicine to be more effect.  Herbal to 0.5 effectiveness and regular medicine to 0.85 effectiveness makes diseases treatable without being absurdly lethal.

(In real life 50% of people infected with bubonic plague will survive with *NO* treatment whatsoever.  So don't give me this "real life" nonsense.  Rimworld disease is broken.  But easy enough to fix on your own)

......-eyebrow raised-

Shurp, you DO realize that having a mortality rate of 50% means a disease is insanely lethal, right?

The disease you are talking about killed upwards of 60% of Europe's population at one point.

Same thing with flu. In 1917, the Spanish Flu killed 3 to 6 % of the total planetary population.

Same thing with sepsis, the real-world name for the in-game infection. In the developing world (which is what Rimworld basically is), sepsis accounts for 60-80% of all deaths.

Part of the problem is that disease in Rimworld is basically a random event, not tied with the environment in any way. Infections are the closest thing to being realistic, but even they come out of left-field.

In the real world, if you wash a wound with clean water and soap, and keep it clean, you will not get an infection. In Rimworld, you need high-class meds, and nothing else will do.

Same thing with plague. Plague isn't tied with vermin, or how dirty your living quarters are. Nope, another random event.

Make diseases actually realistic, so we can take realistic precautionary measures, as opposed to the "Im so randumb LAWLAWL" shit the game currently has. If that were the case, I wouldn't be opposed to making diseases more lethal, so long as there was stuff we could do to prevent them.

[Kerbin Dallas Multipass]

Yea this sucks but perhaps it's somehow realistic.

Urgency of dressing the wounds seems to be key, so is bed rest I believe.

Above and beyond that you can save otherwise lethal cases of infection with luciferium with all the downsides that come with the addiction and the medical bill. It boosts immunity gain speed. 90% infection and 80% immunity? Amputate now! If you can't amputate...get them addicted to luci immediately. In all cases the consequences are tough.

[SpaceDorf]

Talking Ingame ..

I don't know what you did, or how old your pawn was.
A normal aged pawn with two healthy kidneys should survive a infection with basic treatment.

After a battle my base normally resembles a slaughterhouse.
Blood everywhere from friends and foes, doctors running around, everybody who is  still able to stand has doctoring enabled .. everyone who refused to treat people is on cleaning duty.

If my Prison is not ready yet, prisoners are in a storage room on the ground ..

The most important thing is to micro triage .. who is bleeding the most gets the best doctor.

Only wounds that are not treated get infected.
Infection risk rises with the amount of dirt in the room.

My last medical death was a girl who went to her bedroom instead of the hospital room and died to a mixture of bloodloss and pain because I forgot about her ..

My last Prisoner deaths were of bloodloss .. even my lvl 16 doctor was not able to stop 500% bleeding rate in less than an ingame hour.
And the other one .. well .. *ahem* .. It was the first prisoner in a year and I kind off needed both lungs .. now that I think about it .. I could have given them the astmatic ones of my guy ..

[Andy_Dandy]

What about to make good medicine usefull and vital? You can mod out every little hinderance you find lads, and end up with a soulless skeleton of a game. I prefer drama and challenge.

[b0rsuk]

Clean hospital is very important when treating wounds. Cleanliness affects infection chance directly, when treating.

[deshara218]

Customize scenario, modify stat, immunity gain %200. Diseases are still deadly but not getting your doctor onto the patient THE MOMENT they develop a disease isn't a death sentance

[AngleWyrm]

There used to be a mod called MoreDrugs that had a cure pill which provided antibiotic remedy to disease. Which is exactly when I want to do something to fight disease. Cure Pill™* Ever felt like you're about to go Berserk because those damn sensory mechanites hurt like hell? Ever wondered why you have to watch the slow death of your friend just because he caught the Flu and the next day he caught the Plague too? Do you hate Penoxycyline? Well then, I've got you covered! Time to take the red pill and I'll guarantee this antibiotic will clean your system faster than Neo dodges bullets! Cure Pill™* will fix you right up, buddy. What, you're in pain? No problem, this stuff has painkillers in it too! Listen to Morpheus and take the red pill today! Just don't forget that antibiotics will temporarily blow your own immune system back to the stone age too!

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[SpaceDorf]

There used to be a mod called MoreDrugs that had a cure pill which provided antibiotic remedy to disease. Which is exactly when I want to do something to fight disease. Cure Pill™* Ever felt like you're about to go Berserk because those damn sensory mechanites hurt like hell? Ever wondered why you have to watch the slow death of your friend just because he caught the Flu and the next day he caught the Plague too? Do you hate Penoxycyline? Well then, I've got you covered! Time to take the red pill and I'll guarantee this antibiotic will clean your system faster than Neo dodges bullets! Cure Pill™* will fix you right up, buddy. What, you're in pain? No problem, this stuff has painkillers in it too! Listen to Morpheus and take the red pill today! Just don't forget that antibiotics will temporarily blow your own immune system back to the stone age too!

*Sexy Nurse not Included.

[cultist]

The age of the pawn has a massive impact on immunity gain, as does health problems like artery blockage or a missing kidney. Young, healthy pawns have a decent chance of pulling through with just herbal medicine. For pawns over 40, it's a bit more risky.

Regardless of age, you should always administer penoxycline if you have it as soon as the infection hits, it will boost immunity high enough that even very old pawns have a good chance of survival. If you apply it too late (several days after infection) it won't help as much or at all.

[Shurp]

Shurp, you DO realize that having a mortality rate of 50% means a disease is insanely lethal, right?

Then what is a disease that has a mortality rate of 75% even with aggressive treatment with modern medicine?  Even ebola isn't that dangerous.  (About 50% of ebola suffers who receive aggressive medical treatment will survive)  Rimworld plague is more dangerous than ebola -- ie, not "real world" at all.

Yes, the randomness with which Rimworld diseases strike is a bit silly.  But their lethality is the real problem -- and cranking up the power of herbal and regular medicine is enough to solve it.  Get an infection or flu?  Apply (50%) herbal.  Get plague?  Apply (85%) medicine.  Want to do surgery?  Pull out Glitterworld.

But these don't work at the default A16 settings.