A diabetic mod or trait or mod trait would be cool. It would add alot of difficulty. I am diabetic and I thought about it today.
OK. You’d be in a better position to lay it out than I’d be, so let’s see some details.
KA101 is not diabetic, and has suspected that such a trait wouldn’t work too well–we don’t track glucose, and insulin’s stability varies IIRC–but would be glad to be proven wrong.
Maybe like insulin in needles and a sugar cheeker or something like that it would make it harder to survive cause diabetics are thirsty a lot mabye a auto pump to give your character insulin before you eat a big meal or the needle
Right. So far that looks like a combination of a variant-Asthma and High Thirst traits: you get thirsty faster, and need to dose yourself around meals.
Insulin could either be a standalone autoinjector (like adrenaline and flu shots) or require a syringe (as heroin and serums). Would CBM installation be worthwhile for the pump? I’ve seen one in use, but I’m not sure what sort of surgical work is involved in connecting it.
(Definitely not final-form here.)
The pump is either cordless with the little pad thing that comes with it the corless part doesnt coneect throught the pad u put the if it has a cord u put the pad in ur pocket and the insulin goes through the tiny tube there are water proof friendly ones
Would diabeetus even still be around in ~2041?
You may be misunderstanding what diabetes is.
Also, if we’ve not cured the flu, we’ve not “cured” diabetes IMO.
You may be misunderstanding what diabetes is.
Also, if we’ve not cured the flu, we’ve not “cured” diabetes IMO.[/quote]I probably have diabetes, or just borderline, but I get the basic concept, I’ve been checking my glucose almost every day recently.
I would think they would have found some way to regulate blood sugar levels 30 years from now, whereas the flu will never be stamped out.
Still, if such a thing were to exist, it would be an implant of some kind.
In Cataclysm you have these stem cell treatements in hospitals. And these days stem cells really is a hot topic in the news. Apperantly capable of curing a massive amount of problems, including diabetes (type 1). (source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/276094.php)
Now i’m not saying that diabetes wouldn’t exist at all in the future, actually, I would expect it to be fairly common in the future (Type 2, with our current diet that is) but be either curable with a routine stemcell procedure, regulated by a very simple (refillable?) CBM/implant and in more rare cases by some kind of visible strapped-on refillable autoinjector.
Now afcoarse, this would be pre-cataclysm. And if the player was unlucky enough to have discovered that he had diabetes shortly before the cataclysm happened. He wouldn’t be capable of easily getting such a stem cell treatement unless he found some faction with advanced equipement and a doctor capable of utilizing it.
So instead he would have to either find one of these auto injectors, implants or preferably a CBM to keep his diabetes under control. A more longterm goal for this player would be to win the trust of a faction with advanced medical care capable of giving him the stem cell treatement as a either a more permanent solution, or a way to require less insulin to survive.
With the above in mind, players with diabetes would have to either search homes, hospitals etc for injectors/CBM’s and implants to keep himself alive. However, instead of needing to use this equipement manually, the player just has to keep it filled for it to work. Which means another challenge (or chore) to fufill.
That’s what my speculation for the future is anyway.
There could be two traits thought type 1 and type 2 cause there are to in real life butt it would still be hard with either.
And you cant eat sugary items all the time
We’ve had some discussion about this idea.
For hyperglycemia, it is possible to delay its effects for months or years by starving yourself until your blood sugar is lowered and then restricting yourself to eating fats and proteins. People have suggested diets and the stories are at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062586. Some of them involve eating nothing but vegetables after boiling out all the starch.
Typing on phone so I’ll be brief.
I’m also a type 1 diabetic, and have thought about this feature in game terms. Tl:DR insulin has a limited shelf life regardless of refrigeration, and afaik would be near impossible to manufacture post-apocalypse.
I don’t think it would translate to gameplay except being a death sentence. Any other implementation would be woefully inaccurate and unintentionally gauche.
[quote=“dotASC, post:14, topic:6757”]Typing on phone so I’ll be brief.
I’m also a type 1 diabetic, and have thought about this feature in game terms. Tl:DR insulin has a limited shelf life regardless of refrigeration, and afaik would be near impossible to manufacture post-apocalypse.
I don’t think it would translate to gameplay except being a death sentence. Any other implementation would be woefully inaccurate and unintentionally gauche.[/quote]
Fair enough.
There is likely a better candidate to up the game difficulty through self-management that does not require diabetes to explain it’s mechanic. I am unfortunately lacking in good suggestions.
Well, unless you consider the mad hunt for insulin when out to be comparable in frustration and difficulty to finding antibiotics when bitten. If you want that, then maybe add the option to start as someone who got bit before they could get to the evac shelter. Then you’d really have a race against the clock. (I don’t foresee that being particularly fun as a game addition.)
Honestly if we thought a race-the-clock-for-medicine disadvantage was worth having, it’d be better to just have “goo fever” or some such. As has been pointed out, it’s a serious disease, and I’d rather not trivialize it. I’d honestly forgotten that insulin simply wouldn’t keep, so that pretty much kills it.
I didn’t mean to come across as “insulted” by the idea. As I said, being diabetic, I think about the scenario when I play the game (and unfortunately in real life… lol).
The biggest issue for Type 1 is the insulin issue. Type 1 is caused by an auto immune disease that causes the body to stop creating insulin, which necessitates continual insulin injection or pretty rapid death. Outside of the reality of making insulin perishable and difficult to manufacture, the REAL problem would be replicating the blood sugar level, insulin injection, and nutrition management.
Type 2, in a nutshell, is when the body still produces insulin (mostly ) but uses it with varying degrees of efficiency. Type 2 is degenerative in that the worse it’s controlled, the worse the insulin production can get, and the harder it gets to manage, etc.
As alluded to this COULD be completely mitigated in a sci-fi way by creating some kind of pancreatic CBM. That’d be pretty realistic actually, as that is where the real scientific hope for the disease lies.
This CBM could be used as a catch-all instead of replicating the whole array of real diabetic data factors (rest, exercise, nutrition, exertion and physical stress, emotional stress, medication, shit, everything essentially).
TL:DR - WITH SCI-FI SUGGESTIONS + LASERS
- OVERVIEW:
- The player would need to strive to keep himself at “Normal” hunger.
- The CBM existence constantly supplies insulin, effectively keeping the player alive, but moderately (and significantly) accelerating hunger to simulate the challenge of balancing one’s blood sugars. Accelerated hunger does two things. Increasing the rate of “Hungry” and transitions to “Really Hungry” and worse, it mimics general blood sugar management. Second, it mitigates, while highlighting, the more dangerous effects of long-term “Fullness” (high blood sugars).
- To add to the challenge, the CBM itself should be viewed as a drastic measure when (a)ctivated. Outside of supplying the “magic” constant stream of insulin, it could provide emergency assistance managing Hunger or Fullness, but at great physical toll.
- LOW BLOOD SUGARS
- Hunger’s negative effects would have to mimic the current Thirst mechanics, and be pretty significant. Hunger effects would be cumulative and increase rapidly on duration. By the time one is teetering between Hungry and Very Hungry, I imagine the stat effects being similar to the common cold, and thirst and tiredness being greater than the common cold. By the time one is Very Hungry or lower, the character would essentially be near-immobile, and left untreated would slip into a diabetic coma, and have a high chance of death. Essentially, reaching Famished would result in player death.
-
HIGH BLOOD SUGARS
Having high blood sugar AKA being Full, is ultimately the most nefarious part of the disease. The nuances of dealing with this would be, from a perspective of realism, the most interesting, subtle and difficult to simulate.
Somehow this accumulation would/could permanently lower Strength (body breaking down), lower Perception (diabetic blindness is common), lower Intelligence (complications to the body leading to less clear thinking, more stress, etc), make the body more prone to other sicknesses, recover the hidden health meter more slowly, etc. Not sure if it’s possible, but the degeneration could lead to permanently acquiring other traits, High Thirst, Frail (or whatever), etc. -
MANAGEMENT
- (A)ctivating the CBM would place the character, almost immediately, at Normal hunger, but immediately make the character at “Dehydrated”, and at least “Dead Tired” if not “Exhausted”.
- Additional, non-CBM diabetic resources could be in game. Insulin, sugar pills, emergency glucose, etc could be “gentler” versions of the CBM’s emergency activation. Some kind of, scarce, Type 2 pill could exist that slows the hunger progression to near normal levels…
- Diabetic traits would have to include Slow Healer, and I’m sure there are others that would be applicable. Ironically, High Thirst in itself would not be appropriate, especially if the hunger system was utilized. High Thirst is a symptom of high or low sugar levels, not a standalone trait.
- Typical food consumption as it stands should mimic management adequately. More complex nutrition systems would help, etc but are not super necessary.
- Exercise and exertion would be hugely important. Not sure how they work now, but the goal would be to have exercise type activities helpful in lowering oneself from “Full” without the CBM, while also adding to the challenge of eating enough to not get too Hungry.
TL:DR Part 2
Sorry for the long post, as I said I have thought about this quite a bit as it pertains to game play and real life disaster situations (hurricane preparedness etc). There’s a lot to it. Didn’t want to outright discourage the idea, as I feel understanding how this particular disease works is also very fundamental to understanding how VERY sophisticated hunger, nutrition and exertion management should exist as mechanics in general.
The question is, how realistic are these mechanics to implement, and ULTIMATELY would they even be fun to deal with? This isn’t Sim Diabetes, it’s a zombie apocalypse roguelike. 
I looked up some additional pages of interest.
Perhaps it would be more interesting to say that your pancreas produces only an insufficient amount of insulin. That way, the game would be a matter of limiting your calories, eating mainly vegetables, and keeping yourself very hungry when you don’t have insulin. Also, there is nothing keeping some types of insulin from being frozen, which is perhaps the form that you should be expected to find.