Infections - a bit broken?

[Benedict]

I recently got bitten, and the wound became infected.

I think it’s a cool addition, but the rate at which the infection worsened was ridiculous. I was practically dying by night-time of the day I received the bite wound. That’s 12 hours for an infection to get so heavy I’ve got a fever, am vomiting constantly, and I can’t sleep.

It might be more realistic (and certainly fairer) to make infections worsen over the course of maybe 48 hours (or more). It just gives players the time to look for antibiotics, which afaik are the only way to treat infections at the moment.

Otherwise it might be worth making alcohol a means to treating very low-level infections, perhaps at the cost of a big spike in pain. Pouring some absinthe over an open cut will burn out any crap in there no problem!

[Greiger]

First aid kits have a clean wound option that allows you to clean bite wounds to prevent the infection from getting to the point where only antibiotics will do.

I suppose alcohol would be able to do that too. But I don’t actually know much first aid. I know pure alcohol should work, not so sure about booze since that has impurities though.

At any rate we could always Hollywood-ize it and say it works even if it shouldn’t. And I would like more uses for booze outside of Molotovs and putting yourself into a drunken stupor.

[Benedict]

Ah. I didn’t know about the first aid option. That would have been handy. Oh well.

I still think it should be slowed down a little. It’s rare, but it could be completely impossible to handle for early-game players in the time span they’re given.

Allowing booze to disinfect would be a good alternative (and it does work, by the way, although it has to be a high % of alcohol. You can’t just pour some beer in there)

[TaintedHolyWater]

Very true, high potency alcohol can be used to disinfect wounds. But using something off the shelf to do it doesn’t sound like a great idea. Most drinks are around the 5-40% area, where as medical alcohol is much higher at around 70%. And often has other stuff to help clean the wound along with the alcohol.

If we could make moonshine you could distil it a second time to raise the potency and should get it in the right ball park for disinfection but it would still be missing the other additives so it wouldn’t work as well. But who wouldn’t want to make their own shine?

[Benedict]

Hehe. Well we can already make rags into bandages using vodka, so in game terms it doesn’t seem too outrageous, anyway.

[Jihelu]

I go faster than infections. Just kidding, just keep a ton of meds on you like I do.

[HorrorNerd]

I’ve noticed playing the current version that first aid kits don’t even help with a bite. I used one right after getting bit and then used other meds but by 11 at night the wound was infected badly and my character was puking and didn’t survive the night lol.

I like the infectious bite, but maybe have other ways of curing it. In severe cases of infection maybe have the ability to saw off the affected limb. it would majorly reduce morale, significantly increase pain and (maybe if first aid kit isn’t high enough it could lead to death?)

Can certain kinds of clothing stop bites from happening?

[slydogg9692]

[quote=“HorrorNerd, post:7, topic:569”]I’ve noticed playing the current version that first aid kits don’t even help with a bite. I used one right after getting bit and then used other meds but by 11 at night the wound was infected badly and my character was puking and didn’t survive the night lol.

I like the infectious bite, but maybe have other ways of curing it. In severe cases of infection maybe have the ability to saw off the affected limb. it would majorly reduce morale, significantly increase pain and (maybe if first aid kit isn’t high enough it could lead to death?)

Can certain kinds of clothing stop bites from happening?[/quote]

Did you use the “8. Clean Wound 7: Clean Wound” option when you used the first aid kit? AFAIK it only stops working at a certain point after the initial bite.

But yeah, it would be better if we had some more “resourceful” methods for dealing with bites/infections. First aid kids aren’t exactly common. Cutting off limbs is kind of an extreme option though.

[HorrorNerd]

No I did not see that option. I’ll test again to see if the option is there. Yeah cutting off a limb is extreme but it could help you survive just a bit longer. Plus as a player it would make you choose: Do I remove the limp and hope all goes well and in the process limiting myself to not being able to use two handed weapons and the immense pain. or do I continue on popping pills hoping for the best.

[Greiger]

I have noticed it doesn’t always work. But seems to work 9/10 times, unless I just took bites I didn’t notice.

Could make starting with first aid skill a little more useful. Maybe allow characters with the first aid skill a simple and quick to make(like less than a minute) crafting recipe where they take a rag and some alcohol of any kind and can make a sanitizing rag that can be used to clean bite wounds at 100% success, and does nothing else.

EDIT: Or just stick regular old medical alcohol in bathrooms with meds. I’m pretty sure I have a bottle of straight alcohol in my bathroom medicine cabinet, I can’t be the only one.

[Jihelu]

Let me just say this. If you are an average joe. YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE IF YOU CUT OFF THE LIMB. Unless you have a shit ton of supplies or very high first aid(Which by then you won’t have to deal with this because you will have antibioitcs) you are going to bleed to death.

[Sep]

also royal jelly.

When honey is used topically (as, for example, a wound dressing), hydrogen peroxide is produced by dilution of the honey with body fluids. As a result, hydrogen peroxide is released slowly and acts as an antibacterial.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Hydrogen_peroxide]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Hydrogen_peroxide[/url]

not that that’s frequent enough for an early game - but after you break into your first house you _should get the idea that there’s a bathroom and that there are meds in it. so some might think to look into other houses to get some medical supplies seeing that they are stuck alone, with a maniac, in a weird shelter. others might only do that after they are waking up with intense pain for the 3rd time cause they weren’t paying attention.

i’m not sure yet – but wearing multiple layers might just reduce the risk of getting bitten in the first place. but here’s one thing i’ve noticed, it seems to make no sense to pop antibiotics before you get the infected status. that gives you lots of time to find some. and if you don’t find any right away, you will find inhalers/caffeine/coke or whatever to give you the ability to run in and raid a pharmacy. …

so here’s my 2 cents on this being a neat addition to ‘realism’, it sure makes you pay more attention to your loadout as you go out.

[Iosyn]

[quote=“Greiger, post:2, topic:569”]First aid kits have a clean wound option that allows you to clean bite wounds to prevent the infection from getting to the point where only antibiotics will do.

I suppose alcohol would be able to do that too. But I don’t actually know much first aid. I know pure alcohol should work, not so sure about booze since that has impurities though.

At any rate we could always Hollywood-ize it and say it works even if it shouldn’t. And I would like more uses for booze outside of Molotovs and putting yourself into a drunken stupor.[/quote]

You’d need some strong booze. about 60-70% proof should be good enough (it’s not exactly 99% pure, but hey this is the apocalypse we use what works right? You can’t exactly get sterile-room conditions out here y’know.)

Considering the setting I’m sure any character raiding a bar or liquor store would be able to grab enough high-proof booze to die of alcohol intoxication, not just sterilize his wounds.

[sodapop]

Shouldn’t ‘disease immune’ mutation keep you from getting an infection as well? I specifically took disease resistant on a character because infections were kicking my ass, and was delighted to advance my mutation. Thinking I was safe, I started attempting to clear a town. I ignored my bites because, well, I’m immune to disease, why would I get an infection? Lo and behold once I started vomiting it was game over for me, much to my dissapointment.

[system]

DISEASE Immune.

This is a bacterial infection, it is treated with antibiotics.

Of course it should work with this also.

[Soron]

I got annoyed with the limited number of ways to treat bite wounds today, and decided to add another way to prevent them from becoming infected: cauterize the buggers. No first aid kits anywhere? Don’t want to wait until it’s an infection to treat it, or don’t have antibiotics either? Heat up your trusty soldering iron, burn off some flesh, and voila! Good as new*!

I think it’s being tested for inclusion in the main repo now. It’s just a quickie patch for now, I imagine that long-term we’ll end up with more intuitive ways to deal with bites.

*Note: Do not attempt painful procedures while in combat or while operating heavy vehicles. Do not attempt in meatspace, modern medicine questions the efficacy.

[KA101]

I don’t suppose the Hotplate or Integrated Toolset would work as well on the cauterization front?

[Soron]

Hotplate, yes (although its description is less explicit about that). Integrated toolset, no, because I’m not sure how those work (in the game OR in the code - I haven’t had powered bionics yet, and I’m only just figuring out how to code normal items).

[sodapop]

That’s great! If you don’t have a soldering iron though (If you’re going into town to find antibiotics or first aid kits for your bites, a soldering iron isn’t something you can get from the wilderness either) how about heating up your trusty pocket knife and pressing it to the wound? Could also stop bleeding.

I’m still hoping alcohol can be found in house bathrooms someday as well.

[Soron]

I want to add more ways of treating the bite wound (or at least more ways of cauterizing), but I think there’d need to be some involved changes to support most multi-item interactions without introducing annoying multi-action-select windows all over the place.

Although… pocket knives already HAVE that annoying window… this gives me an idea :).