I think I've Been Scammed

[shaw357]

Penoxycyline: "Prevents infection: Malaria, Sleeping Sickness, Plauge."

Take Every Five Days.

I've had my colonists take this drug for 231 days, and now four of them have the Plauge.

What gives?

-----------------------------
They were under the affects of the drug when they contracted plauge.

[Bozobub]

DO NOT use it for "prevention".  Simply give anyone who's sick penoxycycline, and their immunity will immediately jump to 60%.  Yes, it's really that simple.

IMO, it's a badly broken mechanic.

[Cimm0]

Penoxycyline: "Prevents infection: Malaria, Sleeping Sickness, Plauge."

Take Every Five Days.

I've had my colonists take this drug for 231 days, and now four of them have the Plauge.

What gives?

-----------------------------
They were under the affects of the drug when they contracted plauge.

It does not PREVENT sickness (despite saying so in description), but makes immunity start from 60% which guarantees survival.

I do not know if this intentional. The desription should at least be fixed.

[RemingtonRyder]

Regular use of Penoxycyline is actually still very useful, because diseases usually have an initial period where they're not visible, but immunity can still be set to 60% when the disease is hidden.

[Catastrophy]

Only the doctors take it every 5 days to have the best possible protection. Critically hurt people might receive a dose before surgery (or shortlye after)

[Hieronymous Alloy]

Penoxycyline: "Prevents infection: Malaria, Sleeping Sickness, Plauge."

Take Every Five Days.

I've had my colonists take this drug for 231 days, and now four of them have the Plauge.

What gives?

-----------------------------
They were under the affects of the drug when they contracted plauge.

There's an incubation period before the disease "shows up". Penoxy *does* prevent disease but I think it has to be taken every day, not every five days. My guess is the disease hit some of your guys during a gap in their coverage. Perhaps you ran out of the stuff for a few days, or there were some days where they didn't have immunity.

[Zhentar]

Penoxycycline offers true immunity to plague & sleeping sickness for 12 hours, and malaria for 8 hours. After that period, it reduces the probably of that particular pawn getting sick (diseases cannot be acquired at 60%+ immunity, and Penoxy sets it to 61%, so there is a brief time before it decays below the threshold)

The weird part is that the game first picks how many pawns will get sick, regardless of immunity, and then next picks which pawns get sick, weighted by immunity. If only one of your pawns has taken penoxy, and took it 24 hours ago, that pawn is 1/50th as likely to get sick as the other pawns. But if all of your pawns have taken it 24 hours ago, they're all just as likely to get sick and the same number of pawns total will get sick. But they'll still be starting at 59% immunity, pretty much guaranteeing survival, and a very short period of actual sickness. (A young, healthy pawn will be at 90%+ immunity when the plague/sleeping sickness is revealed; malaria never revealed at all).

For plague & sleeping sickness, I would not recommend Penoxycycline prophylaxis for all healthy pawns; it can be taken reactively and still add 30%+ immunity, eliminating the need for bed rest or treatment to survive (and if treatment is provided it won't reach serious stages).

Malaria does need proactive Penoxycycline. A healthy pawn will develop 55% immunity in the 4.6 days it takes to reveal itself, so reactive penoxy only adds 5%. Penoxy taken every 5 days will maintain a minimum of 46% immunity to malaria, so healthy pawns will never have a visible Malaria infection. But taken every 9 days, a healthy pawn will still develop immunity before malaria hits Major severity without any treatment or bed rest. A solo jungle explorer looking to conserve their supply might stretch it out to every 12 days (which will avoid extreme without any treatment or bed rest), or if they're particularly brave/desperate, every 15 days (but then there is a small risk that bed rest will be necessary). Taken every 20 days, Penoxy offers no guaranteed immunity, but on average will cut off 2.5 days before immunity is acquired.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Thanks for all of that Zhentar, good info!

[deslona]

Wow, the description of the medicine has nothing to do with how it works at all. Or how it should be applied..

[Bozobub]

Very true.

[faltonico]

Wow, the description of the medicine has nothing to do with how it works at all. Or how it should be applied..

Tynan believes we should find those kinds of stuff for ourselves, notice the lack of a complete list of changes.

[Torres]

I had one of my pawns snort some yayo and he got addicted to mechanites... wtf!