How's the disease balance?

[Anduin1357]

Alright guys, let me crash this party now. Those pirates might as well siege us with biological bombs and wipe us out. The worst that can be had from eating from cooked food is a stomach ache since most cooks overcook than undercook. The moment you develop an immunity,  the harder it is for infections to hurt us again. The body's stages of healing is ineffable in a simple percentage. He is not pandemic .inc , he should not design diseases to be the focus of the gane. There are more diseases that spread through other means than airborne. Lemon sprays help alot.
If in doubt, go and bathe, spray everywhere with lemon juice and hope for the best. Please dont overcomplicate this thread, I know you guys want realism but just to be clear, be educated about it. realism is not everything in a game too.

[Listy]

My 2p worth on disease balance.

Mostly because my fledgling colony has been hit by this twice today.

Having two colonists taken out of circulation of 6 months by Malaria is Bloody annoying. What's equally annoying is that no matter what I do (100% rest + meds) the Disease always progress to the most serve state. It doesn't seem to be curable, so I just have to wait 6 months to get the guy back in operation.

And that's annoying, just as I felt I was getting my colony to functional... oh no, your high social and growing guys are now laid up for half a year... Have fun!

[Col_Jessep]

I would like to caution about frequent diseases as game mechanic because they are not fun.
There is no important decision to be made most of the time. If you can afford proper treatment is not linked to the disease but other circumstances like if you got the right trader and if you had anything interesting to trade away.

There is already a lot of RNG mechanics in RimWorld (solar flare, electric discharge, mysterious blight, headshots, leg blown off...) that you have zero influence on and are very expensive or impossible to defend against.
Did you notice how all the mechanics I talk about are considered frustrating or annoying by many players. Why is that? Because they don't challenge the player to make smart decisions or prepare for, they are just random "F... You!" events. Most of the time they are not even a threat, just annoying.

If you get a bad roll they can be game enders though. Then you watch your colony burn and ask yourself: Did I make a mistake? What could I have done differently?
The answer is no and nothing. RNGesus decided to kill you and there was nothing you could have done except save scumming after the fact.


Let me compare this to an embark on the ice shelf where the temperature never rises above -20°C and falls as low as -80 or -90°C. That's a challenge! You have to research hydroponics quickly, get heaters going, get a stable power supply up, fight cabin fever, make some parkas and grow meds. It's all about proper planning, smart decisions and correct execution. Strategy not RNG.

So random diseases: The less, the better imo... ;P

[sagittary]

I haven't yet had many diseases (that I'm aware of) so my experience with that is a little low. And my last few games were all in cold environments which may be limiting that. I have had a number of infections in both colonists and prisoners.

Infections seem relatively balanced in terms of mechanics and frequency. In a group of 3-6, there seems to be about a 50% chance per significant fight that at least one will probably have some sort of infection and that feels 'good'. It means there's a post-combat cost between total victory (no injuries/all injuries fully healed) and potential downward spiral of destruction (some sort of permanent injury).

Diseases, I don't know.

As far as mechanics go though, they feel like either a non-issue or they kill a colonist and as such either not part of the story or a major plot point. It's also functionally a race against a timer - at a certain point, it doesn't matter if I spend medicine on someone because their infection/disease meter maxes out and they die. As a result, it's a very binary situation - do I have enough time or medicine to save them? If no, I watch a colonist die. If yes, then I basically just lose a little bit of time whenever a colonist has to get the daily checkup. And the window of opportunity for being able to save a someone can be very low making it fairly fruitless. The end result is that there's a lot of ways to fail but only one way to overcome it.

Now death is fine. It happens and this is one of those games where it's part of the core game loop. The mechanics though could be improved to make it more fun and more dramatic.

Giving diseases and infections notable effects both presentation-wise and stat-wise. It would be nice to see some visual effect on the infectee - they look a little green, they leave a little pus behind them, they have a 'sick' haze around them - to help with the visual storytelling. And stat-wise, having diseases affect things like fatigue, hauling capacity (joint pain), socialization (migraines, sensitivity to sound, scratched up throat preventing speech), and such would allow for diseases and infection to be more varied and interesting while they're happening.

Similarly, if we're keeping the timer aspect, then it would be nice to see more then just two outcomes. Perhaps unsuccessfully treating a disease or infection isn't always fatal, depending on how much treatment had occurred and what kind of disease. Perhaps even successful treatment on extreme diseases might have some sort of complication. A disease that was only partially treated might potentially leave a colonist with scars, lifelong joint pain, sensitivity to certain foods, etc. In severe cases, it may even be that a colonist needs continual medication (xerigum or better) once a month for the rest of their life due to aftereffects. Failing to do that might cause a relapse, doubling of a penalty (they have a minor penalty when medicated properly), triggering of a penalty (they don't have any penality when medicated properly), or some such.

The end result being more potential stories from diseases and infections other than "He got better" or "He dead".

[Teovald]

I spent two years in a Boreal Forest biome. 
Diseases have been fine.   
Infections have been an issue but nothing unnatural, just the normal random consequence of deep injuries.
The only real issue I have with health system is that I have no way to manage medicine stocks/priorities. 
I would love to have a way to do things like reserve the more potent medicine for serious injuries and leave herbal medicines for small injuries (and/or prisoners). 
Right now I do this by hand and it means A LOT of micro-gestion.

[Mihsan]

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.

In jungle biome diseases are quite a problem, but they are still tolerable. In other biomes i hardly notice their impact at all. Also I did not lost no colonist to disease what so ever (possible because i always have enough medical kits).

Infections are more noticeably. I had many prisoners died from them. Also had to amputate limbs to save lives. Big impact on my game, but it is fine (i like such drama).
(i never give my prisoners any medicine, so almost all the time they are getting infections; i am really would like to use cheap herbal medicine on them, but there is just no simple way to do so)

The main problem for me is that i do not see logic in spreading of diseases:
- It looks as if they are assigned to pawns randomly (which is probably true): could be nice to see some ingame explanation like "your pawn swam in malarial swamp, so he contracted malaria".
- I never saw foreign pawns, prisoners or animals with diseases.
- Also I never saw transmission of disease from one pawn to another.

Could be super fun to get plaque from friendly visitors from some tribe. Or rabies from squirrel.

[amul]

Diseases are hitting at about the frequency you seem to want, but I have yet to lose a pawn or even a limb to them. Mind you, I haven't played very deeply into A9, since I seem to restart every 1st winter to try a new heating/cooling design.

[Enjoyment]

I think, the vaccination can be really interesting thing... It could br made from single medicine or as standalone item. If the disease can spread, you'll be able to prevent it.
For more realism, you must be able to vaccinate only for those threads, that you know about. And maybe you must deeply examine your diseased colonist (which will take some time and get a greater risk of death), to produce a vaccine.
After that, you'll be able to vaccinate all of your colonist to prevent (or have a higher ressistance, if full immunite is too cheaty) from that specific thread. You really must start from your doctors.
And one more thing. The diseases now a stricktly biome of your colony. And you couldn't have malaria at thundra. But if you capture fallen raider from faction, whose base located at jungles... and if the diseases will have latent period. And your warden contact with this prisoner for some time - who knows what might happen.
Same thing with wandering travelers or merchants (if they will be implemented)...

[Axel_Wallenrod]

i like the spread of disease idea, and specially when an assault is coming up, u have less people to fight them and u must survive with some guys. I think the player could counter it with a special suit NBQ (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) only is a special Parka that allows dodge the disease to the character who wears it, maybe crafteable  ... i dont know...

[Voqar]

I think infection happens too fast/easy.  I guess you can micro dealing with it better but considering how often you fight and how many wardens/doctors you may have set up, you shouldn't need to micro it (making sure prisoners get medical attention) so much (IMO).  I feel like in my most recent game I had good doctors and wardens and a tight/efficient layout and I think my prisoners got infections every time I captured people.

I would hope that advanced people who can build a spaceship from scratch, install bionic limbs, etc, would be a bit better about disease prevention/handling so it seems a bit ridiculous when 1/4 of my colony spontaneously develop the plague.  That kind of thing.

But I do like the diseases as a game mechanic as it gives you another unpredictable element to deal with.  Frequency seems plenty if not a bit much.

I don't think the idea of spreading disease is necessary.  Diseases fit fine as an event type of mechanic in the game and the game should remain a space colony survival sim and not become a medical simulator.  The fact that for the diseases like plague or malaria that several people develop it at once pretty much emulates disease spread itself.

[Cat123]

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.

I'd argue that the issue with diseases at the moment is a structural  one: apart from the names and recovery times, they're functionally identical. The % spread chances are also illogical, with some diseases that shouldn't spread seemingly infecting multiple pawns at once. i.e. there's no difference between a communicable disease (e.g. the plague) where isolating a pawn would make sense and one where there should be zero chance of spread (e.g. malaria). At the moment it's very jarring for multiple pawns to fall prey to the same disease at once where the disease itself doesn't function like that in the real world.

I'd much prefer that diseases gave varying effects & some code was added allowing world<>pawn stat interactions to exist. e.g. Sleeping sickness gave -50% work speed / run speed, malaria had a % chance for psychosis ("the horror, the horror") and so on. Currently altering pawn behavior / traits is clumsy (usually via thinktrees). Oh, and jungles / swamps = leprosy, it'd be great if there was a chance that your pawn's fingers fell off - at the moment, apart from combat damage, I don't think there's any way for the base world to change pawns.

There's also no degrees to them at the moment that interact with the colony / mechanics. i.e. a medical bed is just as good as a normal bed, medicines don't effect them and so on. It'd be a better mechanic if there were 'tiers' to colony development that allowed various diseases to be dealt with or nullified. e.g. research / buildings should effect the outcome of disease management, and some diseases should be far worse than others.


Without trying to be an ass, at the moment diseases aren't a great mechanism - they're just a flat % chance of having to put pawns on ice in beds until they develop immunity. Dangerous at the starting stages of a colony, a mild nuisance at endgame.

[MikhailBoho]

I think infection happens too fast/easy.  I guess you can micro dealing with it better but considering how often you fight and how many wardens/doctors you may have set up, you shouldn't need to micro it (making sure prisoners get medical attention) so much (IMO).  I feel like in my most recent game I had good doctors and wardens and a tight/efficient layout and I think my prisoners got infections every time I captured people.

Were you treating your prisoners in medical beds with medicine? Using no medicine guarantees poor quality treatment (what do you expect from rotting potato bandages from last years harvest?), and raiders typically get a lot of wounds before they fall. Have a look at their injuries sometime. I'm amazed at the damage some of them manage to take without dying.

Anyway, every poorly treated wound carries with it a chance of infection, so as the number of wounds increases, the odds that you'll get at least one infection becomes pretty high. To avoid that, give them medicine (herbal medicine is preferred as most prisoners are swine anyway) and if you can manage it, a couple hospital beds for 'em.

[Cat123]

I think infection happens too fast/easy.  I guess you can micro dealing with it better but considering how often you fight and how many wardens/doctors you may have set up, you shouldn't need to micro it (making sure prisoners get medical attention) so much (IMO).  I feel like in my most recent game I had good doctors and wardens and a tight/efficient layout and I think my prisoners got infections every time I captured people.

Were you treating your prisoners in medical beds with medicine? Using no medicine guarantees poor quality treatment (what do you expect from rotting potato bandages from last years harvest?), and raiders typically get a lot of wounds before they fall. Have a look at their injuries sometime. I'm amazed at the damage some of them manage to take without dying.

Anyway, every poorly treated wound carries with it a chance of infection, so as the number of wounds increases, the odds that you'll get at least one infection becomes pretty high. To avoid that, give them medicine (herbal medicine is preferred as most prisoners are swine anyway) and if you can manage it, a couple hospital beds for 'em.

Disease =/= infection =/= combat wounds.


Quite the derail.

[StorymasterQ]

I think infection happens too fast/easy.  I guess you can micro dealing with it better but considering how often you fight and how many wardens/doctors you may have set up, you shouldn't need to micro it (making sure prisoners get medical attention) so much (IMO).  I feel like in my most recent game I had good doctors and wardens and a tight/efficient layout and I think my prisoners got infections every time I captured people.

Were you treating your prisoners in medical beds with medicine? Using no medicine guarantees poor quality treatment (what do you expect from rotting potato bandages from last years harvest?), and raiders typically get a lot of wounds before they fall. Have a look at their injuries sometime. I'm amazed at the damage some of them manage to take without dying.

Anyway, every poorly treated wound carries with it a chance of infection, so as the number of wounds increases, the odds that you'll get at least one infection becomes pretty high. To avoid that, give them medicine (herbal medicine is preferred as most prisoners are swine anyway) and if you can manage it, a couple hospital beds for 'em.

Disease =/= infection =/= combat wounds.


Quite the derail.

Yes, but sometimes, it's:
Combat wounds => Infection => Disease.

[MikhailBoho]

Thanks StorymasterQ, that was my point.

Also, the conversation about infections was in response to Tynan's question earlier in the thread, so it wasn't really derailing.

Are there too many infections?

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

Anyway, I checked the defs, and gunshot wounds have a 30% chance of infection. Early game, this is perfect as you'd usually end up with 1-3 wounds before your colonist or a raider is incapacitated (so the odds of infection are worrisome but not overwhelming).

Late game fights however are much harsher as both forces will be geared with armored hats and vests, power armor--so they take tons of bullet wounds before being incapacitated. So, they'll inevitably wind up with 15-20 bullet wounds, each of which has a 30% chance of becoming infected. This means that odds are they'll wind up with at least one infection that you'll need to deal with. When you have 6 prisoners and 6 injured colonists to care for and a small colony of 12, it can be a lot to manage.