How's the disease balance?

[Tynan]

So I'm trying to figure out if diseases need rebalancing.

How would you say the disease balance is right now?

Do you see diseases sometimes but not overwhelmingly frequently?

What about in the jungle? Disease is supposed to be a much bigger problem here.

[TheSilencedScream]

I haven't tried the jungle yet, but I've spent about eight in-game years in colder parts, and DISEASE-wise (not infection from injuries), I only experienced 2-3 hits.

Just my take, but for people being out in the cold 12+ hours a day, every day, I think it'd be a little more taxing than that, even if it was just a cold/fever, etc.

[christhekiller]

Pretty good.

Yes, and yes

Haven't played on jungle primarily because I was so wary of disease lol.

[BokaliMali]

I usually see it just enough to be annoying but not so much that it's overwhelming. Haven't played on jungle recently though.

Is it supposed to be infectious? Usuallly 3-5 colonists all get hit at once but it never seems to spread beyond the initial few.  Maybe I'm just lucky.

[Coenmcj]

I've been playing in Boreal forests and tundras and havn't seen any disease, in the jungle runs I've done it's happened a couple of times though, not as much as would be expected though.

I think Disease isn't prevalent enough. I've got bodies everywhere and no disease at all amongst my body haulers.

[Easton]

In terms of your description, I'd say you hit the mark pretty well with disease. I would, however like to see disease have a good possibility of spreading. As of now, disease is only a slight inconvenience cause your pawn has to go to bed once a day or so for treatment until immunity sets in. Maybe splitting "medicine" into several different items like "bandages" for wounds, "antibiotics" for disease, and "anisthetic" for operations would add a bit of depth to that game mechanic. If you don't have antibiotics, and malaria starts spreading through your colony... Now THAT would be inconvenient. Again, one colonist being sick for a couple of days is rarely a big concern, but worrying about a quarantine or time-sensitive treatment would add some depth.

[Coenmcj]

Maybe splitting "medicine" into several different items

This kind of exists already ingame, Herbal medicine can't be used for bandages and stuff, but works brilliantly for infections and, I think, Diseases.
While you then have regular medicine to do everything else.

[Tynan]

I understand the desire for spreading disease, and it makes sense. I just can't think of a way to make gameplay around that.

If you're gonna add a problem into a game, you also have to add a solution. Spreading disease is easy to code. But how do players fight it? Quarantine? Special doctor garments? All this adds a lot of complexity.

[ZestyLemons]

Disease so far for me:

- With proper treatment it pretty much always reaches a severe state for me, even if Colonists are getting their daily meds.
- Only had one case with proper treatment where a prisoner died (at 99% immunity no less from an infection). The prisoner was in their 50's.
- I haven't had many cases of non-proper treatment, I usually amputate prisoners instead of medicating them if they get lots of infections.

They haven't been so harsh for me. Infections seem a little silly when they happen though - whenever I get them (not overly often, but they tend to happen after raids) it's always like 3-5 infections in every possible wound. Maybe that's just bad luck, lol.


About disease spreading: I totally misinterpreted this and thought he meant diseases that spread to other parts of the body (which would be cool and make amputation way more useful). As for sickness actually being spread from pawn to pawn, I think it'd be cool to have rotting bodies cause/spread disease, and the way you'd obviously prevent that is by burying or burning bodies. Plague catapult, anyone?

[Tynan]

Are there too many infections?

Do others have opinions on this? I did tune infections up after A7.

[Innese]

I don't have a problem with the number of infections, just with how hard they are to fight!

Good hospital bed, plenty of rest, medicine asap, and I still have to amputate 90% of the time it seems

[christhekiller]

Not really. Diseases aren't too big of a deal as long as you at least have medicine. If you have medicine then they just go get treated whenever the infection gets untreated, if I don't then I just keep them in bed until they develop an immunity or there's an attack. But I've never been hit with an infection early enough that my medicine stockpile would have been depleted already so I was able to treat it effectively.

[StorymasterQ]

What about adapting the fire spreading mechanism? Say, sick people can spread disease to pawns two squares away, and is blocked by walls/doors. Maybe even only special quarantine walls and doors.

[Anduin1357]

Seems really easy to combat atm although immunity is a crappy mechanic due to medical inaccuracies in treatment and post treatment.
All medicines suppress the spread atm but there has been no mention of any symptoms that affects mood, productivity etc.
Fact that doctors can heal patient as if they metagame. They instantly know what medicine to take etc...
Post infection, the colonist can still get the same common cold or flu...
The chances of getting these a second time should be slim.
Diseases are underpowered at the moment and vaccines are absent from the game.
Glitterworld medicine is so advanced that it doesn't take an ameutur doctor any effort at all to cure a patient? So far, all treatments using glitterworld tech has not failed and succes chance is at 100% even in the worst of hands. (It's actually buyable in unmodded.)
Infections and diseases might as well be the running joke of the game.
And hide the time to immunity timer, IT SPOILS.

[chaouki]

Are there too many infections?

Do others have opinions on this? I did tune infections up after A7.

I rarely play the game because I don't have time to do so which is why my sample size is pretty small. Nevertheless in my opinion the infections are fine as they are at the moment. Usually some of my prisoners (like 6 in the last game) get infections due to the wounds they receive before getting captured, some I can cure, some I can't due to not enough medicine; which is not a problem of the system but too few stocks of medicine. And there is always the immunity thing going on which is very helpful in dealing with the diseases.