My latest character was running around a city on Day 14. Full health at 10 STR and no Traits that reduce HP so 90 HP on every part. Whilst looking about a Gun Store, a Giant Bee from nearby attacks. It lands three stings, Torso, L Arm, and L Leg. They take the respective parts from ||||| to ||||\ so nothing to worry about. I run away and shortly thereafter lose the bee. Then I start getting messages I’ve never seen before. “You are feeling dizzy”, they say. As a short amount of time passes they become more and more frequent. Now I’m getting Winded messages and status despite having full stamina. The status screen reports Painkiller [17] because the Bees in PKs Rebalance numb you to slow you down and Irradiated. It doesn’t appear to be an effect of radiation, unless the status screen no longer reports an estimate of radiation and Giant Bees can Bruce Banner you in three stings. There’s no explanation for the dizziness so I go on, hoping it will go away. A short walk later, there’s an almost dead Zombie Soldier walking around and I lay some traps to take care of it. It graciously dies for me, then when I go to butcher it this character blacks out. No explanation, just drops.
It’s not normal falling asleep, either. There’s also an accompanying blindness that never happens when you fall asleep normally. Time begins passing rapidly and pain is accumulating for some reason, and despite apparently sleeping as indicated by the “Wait until you wake up message” and the small amount of damage the bee inflicted healing, Fatigue rises at a disturbing pace. It’s not alone either; Hunger and Thirst are both rising at an insane pace. Eventually, the character wakes up with 530-something pain, Very Hungry, Dehydrated and Dead Tired. There is still nothing in the status screen to show what just happened. The Soldier is still dead so it hasn’t been that long or else it would have gotten up again. I go to butcher it and another blackout occurs. Now Famished, Parched, and Dead Tired. All stats are now at 0, but the third attempt to butcher the soldier proceeds without issue. Three steps back to the house I call hideout, the character dies of dehydration. Torso HP just drops to 0.
The deathcam reveals nothing, the status screen reveals nothing, and the memorial file reveals nothing except that you can die of thirst about seven times before you actually die. The cause of death was obviously dehydration, but I want to know what just happened; why I just lost control and everything started accumulating insanely fast. Once again, it wasn’t a long time the character was out since, despite it happening twice before a successful butchering, the soldier did not get back up. Something else had to have been amplifying the rate that hunger, thirst, and fatigue accumulate.
Radiation couldn’t have caused that. There was no other indication that radiation was a problem; no sudden mutations, no nausea, no damage. I could see the painkillers being the source of the problem, but I don’t think Painkillers [17] would be enough for that.
Does anyone have any idea what happened? I don’t want to immediately assume it was something from the Bees in PKs Rebalance and report problems that aren’t there, but I’m stumped.