Plague unbeatable early game?

[XeoNovaDan]

When I looked through the appropriate Defs for A16, I honestly wasn't that scared for plague. Just roll a half-decent doc, and pretty much good to go. Only use medicine for diseases - heck, I don't even use medikits on severe open wounds (unless bleeding rate is so high they'll die in like 3 hours).

Tribal start would probably be a whole different story though... I'd probably know the feeling better if I played tribal more, as I generally don't play tribal (unless I feel like the whole tribal start from nothing, which I had some good, strong colonies turn out from - back in A15)

[Stormfox]

The diseases all start at zero percent severity; they just need to reach a level of severity where they have symptoms before it is revealed to the player. You can see it by switching on dev mode and checking the option to show all hediffs on the health info pane.

If you still have that hard save, would you be willing to share it? I'd be interested in playing around with it and seeing how the numbers turned out that way.

That explains that. That safe got overwritten, sorry.

[Catastrophy]

I've never needed glitterworld meds for diseases. (But I upped medical potency by .25)

[Limdood]

I've never needed glitterworld meds for diseases. (But I upped medical potency by .25)

I don't understand the purpose of this post at all...

[Catastrophy]

The plague hasn't been unbeatable for me.

[FreyaMaluk]

Boston is on the right track up there - if such a severe problem was somehow preventable or at least foreseeable, it would be something else. I just had another outbreak in my colony (roughly a year old at that time). Cassandras constant barrage of bad events, raids every 3-4 days and the usual crap, my (good) medicine stocks were pretty low. I HAD some penoxyline, but did not know you had to administer that as an operation instead of it being used automatically like other meds.

Luckily, the plague hit directly after a hard save.

Results: The initial version was very harsh by itself. 6 of 12 guys were infected. I had 5 beds in my hospital, 3 of which where medical beds with a vitals monitor attached to all five of them and sterile floor with a doormat installed. All 6 of them were sent to bed and had bed rest set to 1 basically at once. All of them were treated - first with the remaining normal meds, later with herbals since nothing else was left.

All of them died, even the one in the excellent quality medical bed with good treatments and a vitals monitor.


I then reloaded my hard save - and lo and behold, the plague still hit, and exactly the same 6 guys (which implies that bad events get "preloaded" quite some time before they happen and are part of your savegame, which is strange in itself - I made a few tests and could even reproduce that effect when switchting to Pheobe Peaceful).

I tried again to see if it was actually possible to survive - same result, all died. Then I remembered that I should have penoxyline, and found out why it was not applied.

I reloaded again, got the plague again (on the usual six guys), and this time applied penoxyline in addition to the usual treatment. The barely survived, by a few percent.

Diseases need a major rebalance, fast.

I also had some massive plague infections in my colony and the difference was made by the kind of medicine and the doctoring level. Vitals Monitor + Fine Meals + Hospital Beds + Sterile Tiles + a Lv. 13 Doctor. All my colonist survived (Cassandra Rough), no save scumming. Maybe the chances of surviving the plague are reduced in harder difficulty levels? can someone take a look at the code and enlighten me?
But, since OP is about Plague early game, I do consider massive plague infections shouldn't happen at least after the first year or if happen, they shouldn't affect more than half of your colonist early game.

[cultist]

The major issue with diseases is that they hit multiple pawns. I can deal with losing one pawn early on to disease, but when I'm faced with half the colony probably dying, I usually just give up on the game rather than watch my colony fall apart once again because of RnG. Diseases have always been dodgy, but previously it was mostly a matter of wasted pawn time and the occasional death. In A16 it feels more like a slow but inevitable death sentence for your colony and that's not fun.

[Thyme]

I guess diseases will be reworked along with Tynans update surgeries in A17.

As it is now, diseases will always infect half your pawns. At least, that is what the incidents_disease.xml suggest, coherently with my experience:

    <diseaseVictimFractionRange>
      <min>0.2</min>
      <max>0.5</max>
    </diseaseVictimFractionRange>

[Listy]

Thing I hate about disease events is that Cassandra cheats, and uses them to make sure you don't get over the population cap.
As others have said it will Affect half your colonists without fail. At least one or two of them will be terminal. Keep in mind that was with Hospital bed, Vitals monitor, 100% time in bed and medicine. It seemed that some get immunity quickly, some were standard length and others were just dead.

It was frustrating to have a third of your colony on its sick bed, and then wham, another few show up a few days later. And knowing despite everything you'd do two of them were going to die. IT also happened quite frequently when over the colonist cap, on a boreal forest.

Good news is Randy doesn't give a hoot and plays fair.

[Thyme]

Yeah, but we're talking early game. I don't think exceeding pop limit still counts

Two of my colonists just got the plague. Its progress was about 50% with 40%ish immunity. Luckily, I've read this thread in the morning and had a trader to buy medicine and Peno... Malari-Block shortly before the plague hit. 50/60 afterwards. 1 medicine and 1 glitterworld each pawn later the progress was 87% and 93% when 100% immunity was reached. Skill was 3 or 4. I'm using better RimDoctors, which also increases medical potency of medicine to 100%. I guess without either the mod or penoxy my two pawns would've dieded.

[cultist]

So I just gave up on my third colony in a row because of early game plague...

Towards the end of the first season, two pawns get the flu. Okay, flu is fine, I can deal with this. Just gotta keep them in bed... 3 days later, double plague hits. I have 3 colonists, one prisoner, a kitchen and that's about it. The doctor got plague so she's dead. The two other pawns aren't skilled enough to save her. The pawn with flu + plague is dead for obvious reasons. None of this is due to any mistakes on my part, the AI simply decided that the game should end before the first season has passed. For the third fucking time in a row. A16 can fuck right off. I wanted to see the caravan mechanic, but I'm not about to invest another 6-8 hours in a colony that just gets taken away from me because the game decides to be a dick. I really hope disease/medicine adjustments are on the to-do list for A17 because this is getting absurd.

[Thyme]

They are. Well, surgeries are, but that counts, doesn't it? I linked to it 3ish posts above.

That's the reason I like RimExplorer, early early game gets much easier with less pawns to feed, a charge rifle and of course lots of glittermeds.

[milon]

I recently gave up on my second in a row, both because of disease. Both of them were early game, both were Rich Explorer, and in both colonies EVERYONE got plague simultaneously. The first colony had 3 or 4 people and the second had 2 or 3. I believe I had Randy for storyteller.  Both colonies were less than one year old when disaster struck, I think.  (I haven't played very recently which is why I'm hazy on the details. I rage-quit and played something else for a while, lol.)

[GarettZriwin]

I recently gave up on my second in a row, both because of disease. Both of them were early game, both were Rich Explorer, and in both colonies EVERYONE got plague simultaneously. The first colony had 3 or 4 people and the second had 2 or 3. I believe I had Randy for storyteller.  Both colonies were less than one year old when disaster struck, I think.  (I haven't played very recently which is why I'm hazy on the details. I rage-quit and played something else for a while, lol.)

After all its still all just drama for him... 

[XeoNovaDan]

Currently battling plague in an Extreme Start From Nothing colony. Patient is 67 years old, my best medic (Osborne) is only level 6 in medicine. Got a medicine supply drop just before plague afflicted Steven, so lucky call there. On the edge of my seat... it's going to be an extremely close call. Arrested him as soon as he started breaking so he could have maximum time in bed.



Final treat quality is 80%... severity 91%, immunity 87%... it's going to be close!

Edit: HE BLOODY WELL MADE IT BY A HAIR! The proximity of the medicine literally made all the difference... my god! Him and Osborne are very close now, and I'd almost be inclined to say there'd be a romance - but he's 49 years older than she is. RimWorld might throw another surprise at me though! He did try to woo her before he passed out... Osborne's also now a level 7 in medicine!



Edit 2: I know this is no story thread, but my god RimWorld surprises me again! They are now lovers I'm actually getting really emotionally invested in them two now... A big raid came after and claimed a life (and also Osborne's left arm)... They almost kidnapped Zebra too, so it was almost just going to be Osborne and Steven. I kinda wimped out and turned the difficulty down from Extreme to Intense due to this investment... I missed the interaction though