Contagious diseases

[Arkay_The_Arcane]

Instead of a disease just occuring in someone and it staying there, certain diseases should be contagious, and spread from colonist to colonist unless the infected are quarantined.

[Kangoshi]

More to that - gut worms should occur after finishing a meal, like with the food poisoning. And not at half of the colony at once.

[Bolty]

How about infected traders and raiders accidentally (or purposefully even) spreading diseases to your colony, simulating the spread of a disease around the planet?

Also I'd like to see some more real-life diseases added to the game. We have the flu, plague and malaria, but how about diseases like tuberculosis and the eradicated smallpox that have the potential to completely wipe out your colony if you don't quarantine and treat infected colonists?

Also more minor annoyance diseases like the common cold which just reduces colonist efficiency and mood for a few days?

[vzoxz0]

This would require an option to burn bodies early in the game as well, and for non-tech civilizations.

[Kangoshi]

You absolutely can - just use molotov. Or we could have a bonfire for that.

[Limdood]

quarantining sick colonists is impractical.

Doctors need to access their patients.  Additionally, it is often very difficult to restrict visitors and traders...There would be a flood of complaints about visitors wandering thru a hospital and then infecting every other colonist.

Proximity based contagions are just way too likely to be complete colony wipeouts with so many different uncontrollable factors in the game.  There are far too many ways for a healthy pawn to contact a sick pawn...even restricting pawns to "not the hospital" doesn't work for pathing (pawns will path thru non-allowed areas to get to a different spot in an allowed area), plus visitors, doctors, haulers, pawns getting up out of bed to satisfy needs, or the all-too-common sick patient mental break from the combination of sick and pain mood penalties.  That isn't even covering how patients that have developed immunity don't rest...they get right back to work.  They are definitely still sick.  They still have symptoms and the sick mood, but there is no option to send them to bed.